NEW YORK: Ogilvy, the WPP-owned agency network, has announced a major restructuring as it scraps global sub-brands to reorganize around six “capabilities” with a simplified offering for clients.
These capabilities include brand strategy; advertising; customer engagement and commerce; earned influence and public relations; digital transformation; and partnerships, the Wall Street Journal reported.
OgilvyRED, meanwhile, becomes Ogilvy Consulting and will work horizontally across the whole business on areas around digital transformation, growth, business design and innovation.
And a new software platform, Connect, aims to encourage greater collaboration across the organization. (Publicis recently announced something similar, with Marcel, its AI-powered network; chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun described it as “a journey to shift Publicis Groupe from a holding company to a platform”.)
“We’re probably going through the biggest business transformation in our company’s history,” John Seifert, Ogilvy chairman and CEO, told Bloomberg.
“We’re pulling down the all the siloes, all the specialist divisions that have been built up over years and really trying to bring it all together and connect it as one company.”
The “refounding”, he added, is the culmination of a two-year journey of transformation that aims to give employees “clarity on the purpose of why Ogilvy exists, which we believe is to make our clients’ brands matter in a chaotic fast-changing world”.
Seifert noted that there has been “unprecedented change within our client organizations” as they face disruption on multiple fronts.
“We absolutely need specialist [digital] skills … but we also need people to see the whole brand,” he continued. Companies and brands that don’t have a holistic view of their environment are going to suffer, he stated. “To us that’s the future – where all this is going from a brand and business perspective.”
These capabilities include brand strategy; advertising; customer engagement and commerce; earned influence and public relations; digital transformation; and partnerships, the Wall Street Journal reported.
OgilvyRED, meanwhile, becomes Ogilvy Consulting and will work horizontally across the whole business on areas around digital transformation, growth, business design and innovation.
And a new software platform, Connect, aims to encourage greater collaboration across the organization. (Publicis recently announced something similar, with Marcel, its AI-powered network; chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun described it as “a journey to shift Publicis Groupe from a holding company to a platform”.)
“We’re probably going through the biggest business transformation in our company’s history,” John Seifert, Ogilvy chairman and CEO, told Bloomberg.
“We’re pulling down the all the siloes, all the specialist divisions that have been built up over years and really trying to bring it all together and connect it as one company.”
The “refounding”, he added, is the culmination of a two-year journey of transformation that aims to give employees “clarity on the purpose of why Ogilvy exists, which we believe is to make our clients’ brands matter in a chaotic fast-changing world”.
Seifert noted that there has been “unprecedented change within our client organizations” as they face disruption on multiple fronts.
“We absolutely need specialist [digital] skills … but we also need people to see the whole brand,” he continued. Companies and brands that don’t have a holistic view of their environment are going to suffer, he stated. “To us that’s the future – where all this is going from a brand and business perspective.”
Sourced from Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg; additional content by WARC staff
